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That Spineless Gun Vote

On April 20, 1999, Katie Lyles, a high school sophomore, was taking a math test when she heard a popping sound. “I assumed it was a prank,” she says.

It wasn’t. The fire alarm soon went off, and a teacher shouted, “This is not a drill. Go, go, go!” Katie and several classmates ran through the neighborhood, seeking shelter. All around them, they could hear the screams of sirens and the whir of helicopter blades.

Finally, a woman answered their frantic knocking. “Are you all from the high school?” she asked. When they said yes, the woman invited them in. That is where they learned that two of their fellow students at Columbine High School had gone on a murderous spree, killing 13 and wounding 21, before turning their guns on themselves.

On Wednesday, 14 years later, I met Katie Lyles in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Now 30 and married, Katie is a grade-school art teacher in Littleton, Colo., the same town where she became, in the sad vernacular of our age, “a Columbine survivor.” She was in Washington as part of a lobbying effort by the National Education Association, the big teachers’ union, to back the handful of simple, common-sense gun bills, starting with universal background checks, that the Senate would be voting on later that day.

Until the shootings in Newtown, Conn., Katie had never spoken publicly about her experience. She is still affected by what happened that day. But after Newtown, Katie realized that the school where she now teaches was as vulnerable to gun violence as Columbine had been in 1999. And she couldn’t stay silent. “I realize that my life has led me to this moment,” she says.

We talked for maybe 20 minutes before Katie and the N.E.A. lobbyists went off to their next appointment. And, of course, a few hours later, the Senate voted down every single gun proposal that was on the table. Among those who cast votes against universal background checks, which should have been a no-brainer, were four Democrats. They are: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. (The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, changed his vote from “yea” to “nay,” but that was said to be for tactical reasons, so he could bring the legislation up again at a later date.)

Photo

Joe NoceraCredit
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

I spent much of Thursday calling the offices of the four Democrats with one question: Why? Why had they voted against universal background checks? Begich’s office put out a statement claiming that universal background checks “do not reflect Alaska values.” How so? His office wouldn’t say. Although Heitkamp issued a press release boasting of protecting “the Second Amendment rights of North Dakotans,” calls to her office produced only busy signals. The phone in Baucus’s office rang and rang and rang. Nobody answered.

Of course, we all know the reason: The four Democrats — along with many Republicans — quake in fear of the National Rifle Association. In 1994, Baucus voted in favor of the assault rifle ban — and then nearly lost his re-election bid. He never again stood up to the N.R.A. Yes, his phones were undoubtedly jammed this week. Still, it seemed to me that his unanswered phone was a potent symbol. I could almost picture him cowering in his office, waiting for us to stop asking why he sold the country down the river.

I loathe single-issue politics, but maybe this is what it has come to. Maybe it is going to take senators like Max Baucus losing their jobs because they wouldn’t stand up to the N.R.A. Maybe it is going to require the majority of Americans who support sensible gun laws to turn themselves into an avenging political force. I wish it weren’t so, but nothing else seems to move them — not even the sight of 20 slaughtered children in Connecticut.

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On Thursday afternoon, I spoke again to Katie Lyles. She was deeply disappointed, of course, but she wasn’t ready to give up. A few months earlier, she had testified before the Colorado State Legislature as it debated stricter gun laws, including mandatory background checks and a limit to the size of magazines. The laws passed a month ago.

“It took a long time,” she said. “Fourteen years. You can’t give up just because you lose one battle.”

She pointed out something else. Colorado has seen some of the nation’s worst gun tragedies — not just Columbine, but last year’s shooting in Aurora. “We’re a Western state,” she said. Colorado has plenty of gun owners. Yet it was still willing to pass tough new gun laws. Katie believes that all that pain Colorado has experienced is the reason.

“I fear that people are going to have to experience that pain for themselves before we can pass these bills,” she said.

“But I hope not.”

Gail Collins is off today.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 20, 2013, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: That Spineless Gun Vote. Today's Paper|Subscribe